The Therapy Zone

    What does No.6 want? "What we all want ultimately - to escape!" Were those not unguarded words spoken by No.2 in ‘The General?’ Strange words are they not, especially from someone who has just returned to the village for a second term of office don't you think. Or in that way is not No.2 every bit a prisoner as No.6? In the fact that No.2 was brought back to the village. Anyway he didn't seem to mind quite so much as No.2 who was brought back to the village for a second term in Once Upon A Time, who was not so joyous about it!

   Is that why the retiring No.2, having just taken off in the helicopter in ‘Its Your Funeral,’ had the helicopter turn back to the Village. Because he instinctively knew that no matter where he went, they would get him in the end, and bring him back to the Village as a prisoner!

    This is the Thatched Barn once of Borehamwood, which was demolished several years ago.

   Interesting enough Patrick McGoohan would go to the Thatched Barn when not filming at Elstree studios just down the road, and partake in a whisky or three. Also the Thatched Barn features in the episode 'The Girl Who Was Death' as the Prisoner's local!

   One time when Patrick McGoohan had been at the Thatched Barn, pouring over the script for Many Happy Returns, he left the hotel leaving his script behind. Arther Tollani, the owner of the Thatched Barn at the time, found the script, telephoned Elstree studios informing them of his discovery. Patrick was so grateful, that he invited Arther to the studios to watch some of the filming, which was the scene of the fight aboard the gun runners boat. Patrick McGoohan also gave Arthur his personal script for Many Happy Returns which would no doubt have contained more pertinent notes.

   For the fight scene aboard the gun runners boat, Patrick McGoohan spent quite a good deal of time in and out of a bath of water so that he looked suitably wet for the scene.

    The script for ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ the observers seen in the background in the control room are described as being positioned at "roving fruit machines." With all the incredible detail included elsewhere in this script, this reference to "roving fruit machines" leaves us with  a tantalising question - were the five observers seated at their posts supposed to rotate around the chamber of the control room, or was it simply a description of the seesaw device in the centre of the chamber?

Be seeing you